A small smile appeared on Elias’s lips.
‘Nah,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t be like that. I go give a lot of money and thing to you and Boyee and the rest of you fellows.’ And Elias waved his small hands, and we thought we could see the Cadillac and the black bag and the tube-thing that Elias was going to have when he became a doctor.
Elias began going to the school at the other end of Miguel Street. It didn’t really look like a school at all. It looked just like any house to me, but there was a sign outside that said:
TITUS HOYT, I.A. (London, External)
Passes in the Cambridge
School Certificate Guaranteed
The odd thing was that although George beat Elias at the slightest opportunity, he was very proud that his son was getting an education. ‘The boy learning a hell of a lot, you know. He reading Spanish, French and Latin, and he writing Spanish, French and Latin.’
The year before his mother died, Elias sat for the Cambridge Senior School Certificate.
Titus Hoyt came down to our end of the street.
‘That boy going pass with honours,’ Titus Hoyt said. ‘With honours.’
We saw Elias dressed in neat khaki trousers and white shirt, going to the examination room, and we looked at him with awe.
Errol said, ‘Everything Elias write not remaining here, you know. Every word that boy write going to England.’
It didn’t sound true.
‘What you think it is at all?’ Errol said. ‘Elias have brains, you know.’
Elias’s mother died in January, and the results came out in March.
Elias hadn’t passed.
Hat looked through the list in the Guardian over and over again, looking for Elias’s name, saying, ‘You never know. People always making mistake, especially when it have so much names.’
Elias’s name wasn’t in the paper.
Boyee said, ‘What else you expect? Who correct the papers? Englishman, not so? You expect them to give Elias a pass?’
Elias was with us, looking sad and not saying a word.
Hat said, ‘Is a damn shame. If they know what hell the boy have to put up with, they woulda pass him quick quick.’
Titus Hoyt said, ‘Don’t worry. Rome wasn’t built in a day. This year! This year, things going be much much better. We go show those Englishmen and them.’
Elias left us and he began living with Titus Hoyt. We saw next to nothing of him. He was working night and day.
One day in the following March, Titus Hoyt rode up to us and said, ‘You hear what happen?’
‘What happen?’ Hat asked.
‘The boy is a genius,’ Titus Hoyt said.
‘Which boy?’ Errol asked.
‘Elias.’
‘What Elias do?’
‘The boy gone and pass the Cambridge Senior School Certificate.’
Hat whistled. ‘The Cambridge Senior School Certificate?’
Titus Hoyt smiled. ‘That self. He get a third grade. His name going to be in the papers tomorrow. I always say it, and I saying it again now, this boy Elias have too much brains.’
Hat said later, ‘Is too bad that Elias father dead. He was a good-for-nothing, but he wanted to see his son a educated man.’
Elias came that evening, and everybody, boys and men, gathered around him. They talked about everything but books, and Elias, too, was talking about things like pictures and girls and cricket. He was looking very solemn, too.
There was a pause once, and Hat said, ‘What you going to do now, Elias? Look for work?’
Elias spat. ‘Nah, I think I will write the exam again.’
I said, ‘But why?’
‘I want a second grade.’
We understood. He wanted to be a doctor.
Elias sat down on the pavement and said, ‘Yes, boy. I think I going to take that exam again, and this year I going to be so good that this Mr Cambridge go bawl when he read what I write for him.’
We were silent, in wonder.
‘Is the English and litritcher that does beat me.’
In Elias’s mouth litritcher was the most beautiful word I heard. It sounded like something to eat, something rich like chocolate.
Hat said, ‘You mean you have to read a lot of poultry and thing?’
Elias nodded. We felt it wasn’t fair, making a boy like Elias do litritcher and poultry.
Elias moved back into the pink house which had been empty since his father died. He was studying and working. He went back to Titus Hoyt’s school, not as pupil, but as a teacher, and Titus Hoyt said he was giving him forty dollars a month.
Titus Hoyt added, ‘He worth it, too. He is one of the brightest boys in Port of Spain.’
Now that Elias was back with us, we noticed him better. He was the cleanest boy in the street. He bathed twice a day and scrubbed his teeth twice a day. He did all this standing up at the tap in front of the house. He swept the house every morning before going to school. He was the opposite of his father. His father was short and fat and dirty. He was tall and thin and clean. His father drank and swore. He never drank and no one ever heard him use a bad word.
My mother used to say to me, ‘Why you don’t take after Elias? I really don’t know what sort of son God give me, you hear.’
And whenever Hat or Edward beat Boyee and Errol, they always said, ‘Why you beating we for? Not everybody could be like Elias, you know.’
Hat used to say, ‘And it ain’t only that he got brains. The boy Elias have nice ways too.’
So I think I was a little glad when Elias sat the examination for the third time, and failed.
Hat said, ‘You see how we catch these Englishmen and them. Nobody here can tell me that the boy didn’t pass the exam, but you think they go want to give him a better grade? Ha!’
And everybody said, ‘Is a real shame.’
And when Hat asked Elias, ‘What you going to do now, boy?’ Elias said, ‘You know, I think I go take up a job. I think I go be a sanitary inspector.’
We saw him in khaki uniform and khaki topee, going from house to house with a little notebook.
‘Yes,’ Elias said. ‘Sanitary inspector, that’s what I going to be.’
Hat said, ‘It have a lot of money in that, I think. I hear your father George uses to pay the sanitary inspector five dollars a month to keep his mouth shut. Let we say you get about ten or even eight people like that. That’s — let me see … ten fives is fifty, eight fives is forty. There, fifty, forty dollars straight. And mark you, that ain’t counting your salary.’
Elias said, ‘Is not the money I thinking about. I really like the work.’
It was easy to understand that.
Elias said, ‘But it have a exam, you know.’
Hat said, ‘But they don’t send the papers to England for that?’
Elias said, ‘Nah, but still, I fraid exams and things, you know. I ain’t have any luck with them.’
Boyee said, ‘But I thought you was thinking of taking up doctoring.’
Hat said, ‘Boyee, I going to cut your little tail if you don’t shut up.’
But Boyee didn’t mean anything bad.
Elias said, ‘I change my mind. I think I want to be a sanitary inspector. I really like the work.’
* * *
For three years Elias sat the sanitary inspectors’ examination, and he failed every time.
Elias began saying, ‘But what the hell you expect in Trinidad? You got to bribe everybody if you want to get your toenail cut.’
Hat said, ‘I meet a man from a boat the other day, and he tell me that the sanitary inspector exams in British Guiana much easier. You could go to B.G. and take the exams there and come back and work here.’
Elias flew to B.G., wrote the exam, failed it, and flew back.
Hat said, ‘I meet a man from Barbados. He tell me that the exams easier in Barbados. It easy, easy, he say.’